Looking at photos like these scares and fascinates me in equal doses. The sheer scale of these holes reminds you of just how tiny you are. Mirny Diamond Mine, Siberia. I’m pretty sure most people have seen this one. It’s an absolute beast and holds the title of largest open diamond mine in the world, at 525 metres deep with a top diameter of 1200 metres there’s even a no-fly zone above the hole due to a few helicopters being sucked in.

The red arrow in the photo below is pointing to a huge truck

Kimberley Big Hole – South Africa apparently the largest ever hand-dug excavation in the world, this 1097 metre deep mine yielded over 3 tonnes of diamonds before being closed in 1914.

The amount of earth removed by workers is estimated to total 22.5 million tonnes.

Glory Hole – Monticello Dam – A glory hole is used when a dam is at full capacity and water needs to be drained from the resevoir.

This is the glory hole belonging to monticello dam in california and it’s the largest in the world, its size enabling it to consume 14400 cubic feet of water every second.The hole can be seen at the top middle of the photo above. if you were to jump in for some reason your slightly damp body would shoot out near the bottom of the dam (below).

Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah, this is supposedly the largest man-made excavation on earth. extraction began in 1863 and still continues today, the pit increasing in size constantly. in its current state the hole is 3/4 mile deep and 2.5 miles wide.

Great Blue Hole, Belize situated 60 miles off the mainland of belize is this incredible geographical phenomenon known as a blue hole. there are numerous blue holes around the world but none as stunning as this one.at surface level the near perfectly circular hole is 1/4 mile wide, the depth in the middle reaching 145 metres. obviously the hole is a huge hit with divers. read more here.Diavik Mine, Canada this incredible mine can be found 300km northeast of YellowKnife in Canada.The mine is so huge and the area so remote that it even has its own airport with a runway large enough to accomodate a boeing 737. it also looks equally as cool when the surrounding water is frozen.Sinkhole, Guatemala – a sinkhole is caused when water (usually rainwater or sewage) is soaked up by the earth on a large scale, resulting in the ground collapsing.These photos are of a Sinkhole which occured early this year in Guatemala. The hole swallowed a dozen homes and killed at least 3 people.

This diamond mine in eastern Siberia (Mirny, to be exact) is so deep that the surrounding “air zone… is closed for helicopters” after “a few accidents when they were ‘sucked in’ by downward air flow…”

Finally, look for the tiny red arrow in the following photograph; it’s pointing to a 220-ton rock-hauling truck more than 20′ tall.

Meanwhile, something altogether different and Jules Vernian is about to occur thanks to some Japanese scientists hoping to drill down into the earth’s mantle: “Using a giant drill ship launched [in July 2005], the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below.”
And then, in an oddly Borgesian, or perhaps MC Escherian, moment of nomenclatural mise-en-abîme, “The 57,500-tonne drill ship Chikyu (Japanese for Earth) is being prepared in the southern port of Nagasaki. Two-thirds the length of the Titanic, it is fitted with technology borrowed from the oil industry that will allow it to bore through 7,000 metres of crust below the seabed while floating in 2,500 metres of water – requiring a drill pipe 25 times the height of the Empire State building.”
For some sense of perspective here, the diamond mine, pictured above, is 1200 meters deep; that means that to reach the mantle, the Japanese will have to produce a drill-hole nearly seven times deeper than the mine (which sounds alarmingly easy, actually – I was expecting to be horrified).
In any case, the drill-ship is called *Earth* and it’s being drilled down into the earth… The attack of the simulacra begins.

[Note: This post originally stated that the mine was in South Africa – but I’ve corrected myself thanks to the comment, below. And apologize. It is, in fact, in Russia as this BBC slideshow – which I actually looked at a few days ago without noticing (uh…) – makes clear. This BBC link also inverts the figures I had, so who knows: I had 1200m deep and 500m wide (which I suppose is a bit unlikely); the Beeb says the opposite. If that is the case, however, then that Japanese bore-hole into the earth’s mantle will actually be at least *fourteen times* deeper than the Mirny mine…]